for xanify: baffled Victor Alec + crushing + Selene + oblivious D
It's December, which means I try to write a few things here and there just for fun! Keep an eye out over the next little while! Not taking prompts this year, just keeping my ear to the ground. ;)
xanify is going to be on a mountain on Christmas (!!!!) so she gets hers early. This one is a grab bag of things she's said make her happy, so it's ... very ridiculous. You've been warned.
The warning bells start ringing when Selene shows up at his house armed with cookies. And not just any cookies, but Devon’s Cornucopia Cookies: a ‘throw it all in’ recipe of every kind of goodie imaginable, chunks of three different kinds of chocolate, salted caramel, macadamia nuts, oats, cinnamon, so that each bite is an overwhelming decadence of flavour that makes Alec feel like his dad and half a dozen trainers are going to appear over his shoulder and tell him he has to eat nothing but broccoli and do a dozen wall-sits just for looking at one.
“Hello,” Alec says, hearing his voice slide into suspicious but not able to drag it back into neutral. Selene can’t even manage the fiction of cheery innocence, not today; she’s gone all shifty, which could mean anything from borrowing something and dropping it in the stream behind the woods to coming over to apologize for something she’d refused to feel guilty over until her father made the disappointed face. He’s gotten pretty good at mapping their childhood experiences and Selene’s mannerisms onto their adult selves, but this is a new one. “Is this a delivery, or are you staying?”
“I brought social lubricant,” Selene says, sliding past him into the house and kicking off her shoes. For a second Alec blinks at her, but then he remembers the sandwiches and his disastrous attempt to bribe her with lunch before vomiting his feelings all over her, and holy shit this is an actual conversation? Selene initiating conversation?
Alec grabs two cookies from the plate and shoves them straight into his face. The sugar hits him like a freight train, regret landing half a second later, but it’s too late now.
“That’s the spirit,” Selene says. “And it’s not that bad, but you can’t have alcohol yet, so this is what you get.” She leaves the cookies on the coffee table and drops onto the sofa, settling her feet into their usual groove in the cushion. The fact that her feet have their own groove makes a strange little flip in Alec’s chest, and he lowers himself down to join her, fighting the impulse to offer her a beverage. The twitch at the corners of Selene’s mouth tells him he’s not doing a very good job of hiding it.
Selene settles back against the side cushion, studying him with that sympathetic way she has, which for her looks a little bit like a scientist pulling wings off a butterfly for the sake of knowledge. “You know that thing in movies, where one character comes and talks to another character about how they’re feeling, and it’s very cliche and terrible and stupid because nobody ever has those conversations in real life?”
Alec snickers in spite of himself. “People in real life talk about their feelings, Lene.”
She rolls her eyes. “Not my feelings. Your feelings.”
That takes a second. He has to rewind, imagine invisible Games commentators running analysis. “You - want to talk to me about my feelings? Did you lose a bet?”
“Ha, ha.” Selene aims the pillow at his face, but Alec catches it one-handed. “Do you like Claudius?”
The worst part: he understands the question immediately. The actual worst part: Alec hears himself speak, out loud, in all apparent seriousness, the words, “Well yeah, he’s a good guy.”
Selene stares at him. But Alec has gone and said it now, so it’s not like he’s going to back down five seconds later, so he stares back with all the bone-headed ignorance he can muster. “Alec -” Selene says, hissing on an invisible S, swallowing the last name neither of them are supposed to know or acknowledge, “I came here. I brought cookies. I am being respectful of your space and your - whatever, all those Emory things. But if you try to pull a Petra on me I will rip off your arm and eat it.”
“Lene, remember I wasn’t in your cohort, I don’t know all your in-jokes,” Alec says, except he is not in fact an idiot and it’s not that hard to figure out that ‘pulling a Petra’ in this context means being stubbornly, incontrovertibly, obtuse. “Why would you - is this a dare? Or some kind of prank?”
“A prank would be getting the two of you alone someplace secluded with a piano and plenty of sparring space,” Selene says dryly, and the flash of triumph when Alec’s face flashes hot is a memory he will take to his shameful, shameful grave. “No, you dingus, I’m just asking because Emory won’t unless you bring it up, and D didn’t notice the time a girl practically took her top off in front of him, and you’re such a -” There it is again, such a Seward hanging in the air between them, but Selene is too good to let it linger “- dork that I’m worried about you.”
Alec’s head whirls, but he can keep up well enough to feel a stab of offence. “Worried? Even if you were right, what do you think I’d do, fling myself at him and embarrass myself?”
She waves a hand. “Nah, that would be fine, I did that my first year out.” At Alec’s startled choke, Selene bares her teeth in a sharp grin. “What? He’s hot. But he said no, and Misha said I shouldn’t hit on people who say no, so that was it. But I didn’t like him.”
For a second he doesn’t get the difference, but then the memories of Centre flings with boys he definitely could not carry out a conversation without extreme exasperation floated to the surface, and Alec clicks his teeth together. “You think I have a crush on him.”
“You’re the one who made it sound like we’re five, but sure, okay.” Selene taps her fingers against her knee. “Look, I’m not - I wanted to tell you it’s fine.”
Well that’s not what he expected. Alec blinks at her, trying desperately to reshuffle the cards in a hand that keeps slipping through his fingers, and Selene sighs and continues. “You’d figure it out eventually, right? And then you’d figure it out, and you’d freak out, and it would be a big thing, and you’d never tell anyone because you’d think you were being creepy and taking advantage of your friendship any time you touched him or sat on the couch or let him play piano for you, and it would get all weird. And if you did tell Emory, she’d make this whole thing about behaving honourably and how it’s not a bad thing if you don’t let it affect your actions, but - bullshit.”
Alec pushes a hand through his hair, a ghost of a laugh rising in his throat. “Bullshit, huh?”
“Bullshit,” Selene says, with the confidence and finality of a presidential mandate. “You never did crushes because you’re you and everything you do is stupid and intense, and Emory is Emory so it’s not like she’s going to tell you. Look, the point of having a first crush to have a crush. You get to feel dumb and happy when he’s around and you know it’s not going to happen and that’s fine, that’s the point. So if you do like him, you don’t have to feel guilty or gross for feeling all weird and floaty when you sit on the couch. You’re not taking advantage, and it’s not predatory.” She glares at him with a ferocity that makes him jump, but it’s also the shock of seeing her grab a knife and spear a fish he’d only barely caught out the corner of his eye. “It’s a crush. That’s supposed to happen. And it’s fine.”
Alec tries to speak, fails. Wets his lips, tries again. Part of him wants to crawl into a hole and never come out again, but at the same time, he survived telling Emory about his hero-fantasy sex dreams with Leander. “And then what happens?”
“You get over it,” Selene says, giving him her favourite you idiot face. He probably shouldn’t find it comforting, but oh well. “And that’s fine too. You do all the same stuff as before, just without blushing. So just - don’t be you, okay? Don’t freak out. I know you’re super serious and Emory is super serious and everything is always this big lesson on the human condition but - not this time.”
“I - yeah, okay.” Alec takes another cookie from the plate and turns it over in his hands. Did she tell Devon what she wanted them for, or show up at his house and demand a batch without context? “You realize I don’t even know if I do like him.”
Selene rolls her eyes. “Duh. I can see you repressing because it’s ‘inappropriate’ to think that way about your friends every time you sit next to him on the couch. If it were up to you, you’d Alec yourself into never feeling anything at all.”
The worst part is that’s not … inaccurate. Alec clears his throat and eats the cookie to try to cover the embarrassed cough building up inside him. If nothing else it gives him a second to think, since he can’t exactly talk with his mouth full of chocolate and crumbs. He takes his time, and when he finally swallows he decides there’s no point denying any of it because, well, it’s Selene. There’s no arguing with Selene logic. “You know what, I’ll take it. Thanks for the cookies and the life advice.”
She makes a face at him. “Don’t make it weird.”
Only Selene could march into his house, butt her way into his personal business without an ounce of shame, and provide a shockingly accurate picture of his personal neuroses and an appropriate takedown, only to balk when Alec attempted to frame any of that as giving him useful advice. “Right, my mistake,” he said. “Want to eat all the cookies, then go hit each other outside and see if we throw up?”
“You don’t want to do any of those things,” Selene said, a knowing grin spreading across her face, “but I absolutely do, so too bad for you.” She jumps to her feet and hauls him up by the hand, and Alec makes sure to groan theatrically as he follows her out to the porch.
(Neither of them throw up, but Alec spends the evening on the couch, groaning face-first into the cushions and declaring he will never eat anything but raw vegetables ever again.)
Later that week, the three of them meet up at Claudius’ for a movie night, and Alec refuses to replay the conversation on repeat and turn into a giant headcase (don’t pull an Alec Selene warns in his head, rapping his forehead with invisible knuckles) but the edges of it linger in the back of his mind. Claudius answers the door in jeans and a soft, knitted sweater, feet bare on the hardwood floor, and he laughs and brushes snow from Alec’s hair before taking his jacket and flinging an arm around his shoulders.
Okay, Alec thinks. Yeah. Okay. Cool, cool, no big deal. Okay.
“Come on in, I’m just grabbing the snacks,” Claudius tells him. “I put your favourite blanket out already.”
Alec didn’t even know he had a favourite blanket. But then he heads over to the couch and sees the dark blue blanket that’s soft but not too soft and thick enough it feels almost heavy, so it settles over him like Emory’s arm across his chest during a sparring match, and he’s shocked to realize Claudius is right.
Yeah, okay, fine. He has a crush on D, score one for Selene. Alec curls up on the couch, pulls the blanket over his head, and buries a fit of laughter into his knees.
“You okay?” Claudius asks, coming back into the room and balancing an enormous tray of snacks: cookies and tiny cupcakes with alarmingly rainbow frosting and cheese and crackers and a pile of vegetables with various savoury things to dip them in. Alec amuses himself for a good few seconds taking mental bets on whether Claudius would find it less mortifying to ask Emory, Odin, or Adessa for hosting advice. “Kinda looked like you were having a fit there.”
“Everything’s fine,” Alec says, reaching down to snag a head of cauliflower to gnaw on, half because he genuinely likes vegetables and half because Selene once said it makes him look like some kind of weird mutt chewing on a skull. Claudius shoots him a skeptical look, but then Selene’s boots pound up the front walk and he leaves to go get the door.
Selene bounds into the room, shedding her outerwear in layers on the way in and blithely ignoring Claudius’ sigh as he picks up after her with dramatic exaggeration. “Hey you,” she says to Alec, flopping down onto the couch. “Ugh, you and your cauliflower.” But then she zeroes in on his face, eyes sharpening as she catches something in his expression, and her smile grows teeth. “Oho?”
“Yeah, yeah, oho yourself,” Alec shoots back, sticking out his foot and shoving her hard enough she grins in triumph. “Shut up.”
“No sparring on the couch, that’s what the floor is for,” Claudius warns them, and Selene obligingly pulls back her feet so he can sit between them. Alec would glare at her, but while Claudius is remarkably oblivious, he’s not stupid. “You’re last in, Lene, so no whining over movie choices.”
Alec almost chooses a stupid romance movie just to make Selene cry, except he can’t even imagine what she’d have to say about the hidden meanings. So instead they go with a cheesy heist flick, nice neutral ground, not protesting too much, and Selene makes a contented noise and flops in against Claudius’ side.
“I see how it is,” Claudius says with put-upon resignation. “You know I actually switched my couch out for a bigger one after Alec won? So we could all have personal space?”
“Shh,” Selene says, unperturbed. “Movie’s starting.”
Alec, frozen in indecision as always with a foot’s space between them, can’t make himself close the gap. Claudius glances at him, grey eyes quiet and searching. Claudius doesn’t see the crush, Alec knows that, but he might see the boy who can count the number of hugs his parents gave him on his fingers. Alec tenses, waiting for questions, for pity, but then an interesting thing happens. Alec watches the persona flicker over Claudius again, the attitude of casual forbearance settling back into his face and posture, wiping out the hints of sympathy. “Come on then,” Claudius says, holding out his arm. Leaving Alec his pride. “If personal space is going to die, I may as well keep both sides warm.”
Claudius is warm, and solid, his pulse a slow and steady rhythm in comparison to Alec’s jackhammering heartbeat, his arm a comforting presence at Alec’s side. But the film plays on and the roof stays standing, and slowly, slowly, Alec lets himself relax.
He dozes off halfway through the film. He drifts awake to the main couple making out as a building explodes behind them (aren’t heists supposed to be sneaky?), Selene offering dramatic commentry in the style of Caesar Flickerman, and Claudius idly combing fingers through his hair.
xanify is going to be on a mountain on Christmas (!!!!) so she gets hers early. This one is a grab bag of things she's said make her happy, so it's ... very ridiculous. You've been warned.
The warning bells start ringing when Selene shows up at his house armed with cookies. And not just any cookies, but Devon’s Cornucopia Cookies: a ‘throw it all in’ recipe of every kind of goodie imaginable, chunks of three different kinds of chocolate, salted caramel, macadamia nuts, oats, cinnamon, so that each bite is an overwhelming decadence of flavour that makes Alec feel like his dad and half a dozen trainers are going to appear over his shoulder and tell him he has to eat nothing but broccoli and do a dozen wall-sits just for looking at one.
“Hello,” Alec says, hearing his voice slide into suspicious but not able to drag it back into neutral. Selene can’t even manage the fiction of cheery innocence, not today; she’s gone all shifty, which could mean anything from borrowing something and dropping it in the stream behind the woods to coming over to apologize for something she’d refused to feel guilty over until her father made the disappointed face. He’s gotten pretty good at mapping their childhood experiences and Selene’s mannerisms onto their adult selves, but this is a new one. “Is this a delivery, or are you staying?”
“I brought social lubricant,” Selene says, sliding past him into the house and kicking off her shoes. For a second Alec blinks at her, but then he remembers the sandwiches and his disastrous attempt to bribe her with lunch before vomiting his feelings all over her, and holy shit this is an actual conversation? Selene initiating conversation?
Alec grabs two cookies from the plate and shoves them straight into his face. The sugar hits him like a freight train, regret landing half a second later, but it’s too late now.
“That’s the spirit,” Selene says. “And it’s not that bad, but you can’t have alcohol yet, so this is what you get.” She leaves the cookies on the coffee table and drops onto the sofa, settling her feet into their usual groove in the cushion. The fact that her feet have their own groove makes a strange little flip in Alec’s chest, and he lowers himself down to join her, fighting the impulse to offer her a beverage. The twitch at the corners of Selene’s mouth tells him he’s not doing a very good job of hiding it.
Selene settles back against the side cushion, studying him with that sympathetic way she has, which for her looks a little bit like a scientist pulling wings off a butterfly for the sake of knowledge. “You know that thing in movies, where one character comes and talks to another character about how they’re feeling, and it’s very cliche and terrible and stupid because nobody ever has those conversations in real life?”
Alec snickers in spite of himself. “People in real life talk about their feelings, Lene.”
She rolls her eyes. “Not my feelings. Your feelings.”
That takes a second. He has to rewind, imagine invisible Games commentators running analysis. “You - want to talk to me about my feelings? Did you lose a bet?”
“Ha, ha.” Selene aims the pillow at his face, but Alec catches it one-handed. “Do you like Claudius?”
The worst part: he understands the question immediately. The actual worst part: Alec hears himself speak, out loud, in all apparent seriousness, the words, “Well yeah, he’s a good guy.”
Selene stares at him. But Alec has gone and said it now, so it’s not like he’s going to back down five seconds later, so he stares back with all the bone-headed ignorance he can muster. “Alec -” Selene says, hissing on an invisible S, swallowing the last name neither of them are supposed to know or acknowledge, “I came here. I brought cookies. I am being respectful of your space and your - whatever, all those Emory things. But if you try to pull a Petra on me I will rip off your arm and eat it.”
“Lene, remember I wasn’t in your cohort, I don’t know all your in-jokes,” Alec says, except he is not in fact an idiot and it’s not that hard to figure out that ‘pulling a Petra’ in this context means being stubbornly, incontrovertibly, obtuse. “Why would you - is this a dare? Or some kind of prank?”
“A prank would be getting the two of you alone someplace secluded with a piano and plenty of sparring space,” Selene says dryly, and the flash of triumph when Alec’s face flashes hot is a memory he will take to his shameful, shameful grave. “No, you dingus, I’m just asking because Emory won’t unless you bring it up, and D didn’t notice the time a girl practically took her top off in front of him, and you’re such a -” There it is again, such a Seward hanging in the air between them, but Selene is too good to let it linger “- dork that I’m worried about you.”
Alec’s head whirls, but he can keep up well enough to feel a stab of offence. “Worried? Even if you were right, what do you think I’d do, fling myself at him and embarrass myself?”
She waves a hand. “Nah, that would be fine, I did that my first year out.” At Alec’s startled choke, Selene bares her teeth in a sharp grin. “What? He’s hot. But he said no, and Misha said I shouldn’t hit on people who say no, so that was it. But I didn’t like him.”
For a second he doesn’t get the difference, but then the memories of Centre flings with boys he definitely could not carry out a conversation without extreme exasperation floated to the surface, and Alec clicks his teeth together. “You think I have a crush on him.”
“You’re the one who made it sound like we’re five, but sure, okay.” Selene taps her fingers against her knee. “Look, I’m not - I wanted to tell you it’s fine.”
Well that’s not what he expected. Alec blinks at her, trying desperately to reshuffle the cards in a hand that keeps slipping through his fingers, and Selene sighs and continues. “You’d figure it out eventually, right? And then you’d figure it out, and you’d freak out, and it would be a big thing, and you’d never tell anyone because you’d think you were being creepy and taking advantage of your friendship any time you touched him or sat on the couch or let him play piano for you, and it would get all weird. And if you did tell Emory, she’d make this whole thing about behaving honourably and how it’s not a bad thing if you don’t let it affect your actions, but - bullshit.”
Alec pushes a hand through his hair, a ghost of a laugh rising in his throat. “Bullshit, huh?”
“Bullshit,” Selene says, with the confidence and finality of a presidential mandate. “You never did crushes because you’re you and everything you do is stupid and intense, and Emory is Emory so it’s not like she’s going to tell you. Look, the point of having a first crush to have a crush. You get to feel dumb and happy when he’s around and you know it’s not going to happen and that’s fine, that’s the point. So if you do like him, you don’t have to feel guilty or gross for feeling all weird and floaty when you sit on the couch. You’re not taking advantage, and it’s not predatory.” She glares at him with a ferocity that makes him jump, but it’s also the shock of seeing her grab a knife and spear a fish he’d only barely caught out the corner of his eye. “It’s a crush. That’s supposed to happen. And it’s fine.”
Alec tries to speak, fails. Wets his lips, tries again. Part of him wants to crawl into a hole and never come out again, but at the same time, he survived telling Emory about his hero-fantasy sex dreams with Leander. “And then what happens?”
“You get over it,” Selene says, giving him her favourite you idiot face. He probably shouldn’t find it comforting, but oh well. “And that’s fine too. You do all the same stuff as before, just without blushing. So just - don’t be you, okay? Don’t freak out. I know you’re super serious and Emory is super serious and everything is always this big lesson on the human condition but - not this time.”
“I - yeah, okay.” Alec takes another cookie from the plate and turns it over in his hands. Did she tell Devon what she wanted them for, or show up at his house and demand a batch without context? “You realize I don’t even know if I do like him.”
Selene rolls her eyes. “Duh. I can see you repressing because it’s ‘inappropriate’ to think that way about your friends every time you sit next to him on the couch. If it were up to you, you’d Alec yourself into never feeling anything at all.”
The worst part is that’s not … inaccurate. Alec clears his throat and eats the cookie to try to cover the embarrassed cough building up inside him. If nothing else it gives him a second to think, since he can’t exactly talk with his mouth full of chocolate and crumbs. He takes his time, and when he finally swallows he decides there’s no point denying any of it because, well, it’s Selene. There’s no arguing with Selene logic. “You know what, I’ll take it. Thanks for the cookies and the life advice.”
She makes a face at him. “Don’t make it weird.”
Only Selene could march into his house, butt her way into his personal business without an ounce of shame, and provide a shockingly accurate picture of his personal neuroses and an appropriate takedown, only to balk when Alec attempted to frame any of that as giving him useful advice. “Right, my mistake,” he said. “Want to eat all the cookies, then go hit each other outside and see if we throw up?”
“You don’t want to do any of those things,” Selene said, a knowing grin spreading across her face, “but I absolutely do, so too bad for you.” She jumps to her feet and hauls him up by the hand, and Alec makes sure to groan theatrically as he follows her out to the porch.
(Neither of them throw up, but Alec spends the evening on the couch, groaning face-first into the cushions and declaring he will never eat anything but raw vegetables ever again.)
Later that week, the three of them meet up at Claudius’ for a movie night, and Alec refuses to replay the conversation on repeat and turn into a giant headcase (don’t pull an Alec Selene warns in his head, rapping his forehead with invisible knuckles) but the edges of it linger in the back of his mind. Claudius answers the door in jeans and a soft, knitted sweater, feet bare on the hardwood floor, and he laughs and brushes snow from Alec’s hair before taking his jacket and flinging an arm around his shoulders.
Okay, Alec thinks. Yeah. Okay. Cool, cool, no big deal. Okay.
“Come on in, I’m just grabbing the snacks,” Claudius tells him. “I put your favourite blanket out already.”
Alec didn’t even know he had a favourite blanket. But then he heads over to the couch and sees the dark blue blanket that’s soft but not too soft and thick enough it feels almost heavy, so it settles over him like Emory’s arm across his chest during a sparring match, and he’s shocked to realize Claudius is right.
Yeah, okay, fine. He has a crush on D, score one for Selene. Alec curls up on the couch, pulls the blanket over his head, and buries a fit of laughter into his knees.
“You okay?” Claudius asks, coming back into the room and balancing an enormous tray of snacks: cookies and tiny cupcakes with alarmingly rainbow frosting and cheese and crackers and a pile of vegetables with various savoury things to dip them in. Alec amuses himself for a good few seconds taking mental bets on whether Claudius would find it less mortifying to ask Emory, Odin, or Adessa for hosting advice. “Kinda looked like you were having a fit there.”
“Everything’s fine,” Alec says, reaching down to snag a head of cauliflower to gnaw on, half because he genuinely likes vegetables and half because Selene once said it makes him look like some kind of weird mutt chewing on a skull. Claudius shoots him a skeptical look, but then Selene’s boots pound up the front walk and he leaves to go get the door.
Selene bounds into the room, shedding her outerwear in layers on the way in and blithely ignoring Claudius’ sigh as he picks up after her with dramatic exaggeration. “Hey you,” she says to Alec, flopping down onto the couch. “Ugh, you and your cauliflower.” But then she zeroes in on his face, eyes sharpening as she catches something in his expression, and her smile grows teeth. “Oho?”
“Yeah, yeah, oho yourself,” Alec shoots back, sticking out his foot and shoving her hard enough she grins in triumph. “Shut up.”
“No sparring on the couch, that’s what the floor is for,” Claudius warns them, and Selene obligingly pulls back her feet so he can sit between them. Alec would glare at her, but while Claudius is remarkably oblivious, he’s not stupid. “You’re last in, Lene, so no whining over movie choices.”
Alec almost chooses a stupid romance movie just to make Selene cry, except he can’t even imagine what she’d have to say about the hidden meanings. So instead they go with a cheesy heist flick, nice neutral ground, not protesting too much, and Selene makes a contented noise and flops in against Claudius’ side.
“I see how it is,” Claudius says with put-upon resignation. “You know I actually switched my couch out for a bigger one after Alec won? So we could all have personal space?”
“Shh,” Selene says, unperturbed. “Movie’s starting.”
Alec, frozen in indecision as always with a foot’s space between them, can’t make himself close the gap. Claudius glances at him, grey eyes quiet and searching. Claudius doesn’t see the crush, Alec knows that, but he might see the boy who can count the number of hugs his parents gave him on his fingers. Alec tenses, waiting for questions, for pity, but then an interesting thing happens. Alec watches the persona flicker over Claudius again, the attitude of casual forbearance settling back into his face and posture, wiping out the hints of sympathy. “Come on then,” Claudius says, holding out his arm. Leaving Alec his pride. “If personal space is going to die, I may as well keep both sides warm.”
Claudius is warm, and solid, his pulse a slow and steady rhythm in comparison to Alec’s jackhammering heartbeat, his arm a comforting presence at Alec’s side. But the film plays on and the roof stays standing, and slowly, slowly, Alec lets himself relax.
He dozes off halfway through the film. He drifts awake to the main couple making out as a building explodes behind them (aren’t heists supposed to be sneaky?), Selene offering dramatic commentry in the style of Caesar Flickerman, and Claudius idly combing fingers through his hair.